First of all, let me say this: Parenting involves some EXTREMELY individual and PRIVATE decisions on the part of each parent or parent-team, and with so many of these decisions, there is no right or wrong—only what’s right for your kid/family.

Some of these decisions are:
- whether and how long to breastfeed
- when and how to go about weaning
- where the kid sleeps
- how to administer discipline
- how much to encourage kids toward the next phase, vs. letting things take their course
- how much freedom to allow vs. how much structure to provide
- how much to worry about safety, germs, etc.
- plus, TONS MORE STUFF

Before I became a parent, I was naive about a lot of this stuff, in that I thought there was indeed a “right” way to do each thing—a way that had been proven by contemporary science, and that I would learn of through doctors and other parents in-the-know.

This isn’t true. There are actually valid arguments for doing completely opposite things in just about every case, and none of them matter nearly as much as the fact that you know your kid—and your family situation—best.

If you’re interested in knowing a bit more about where we’ve gotten our ideas of the “right” and “wrong” way to do each of these things, and about what the alternatives are in each case, I’m reading a book right now that offers some fairly good discussions about them. Yes, it’s BIASED; the book advocates co-sleeping (vs. sleep training, not that these two concepts are anything close to black and white). However, I think even a parent who disagrees with co-sleeping might find it interesting, informative, and useful.

Parenting involves finding your own philosophy on a spectrum of philosophies, each of which comes with its own research, arguments, and history that show why it and it alone is the right way to go in order to avoid forever warping your child. It can be overwhelming, but the important thing to remember is that none of us knows for sure what the best way is to do any of these things for someone else. I’ve realized only recently that while it’s helpful to learn what other parents do, it’s a mistake to “advise” another parent to do something as you did it and assume the way you chose to do it was (a) the only way that works, and/or (b) the accepted best way of all for everyone.

So yes, Violet sleeps in our bed. Some people think this is a very bad, dangerous thing. A thing that will lead to, among other problems, Steve’s and my never touching again; Violet’s sleeping with us until she is 19; Violet’s suffocating in our bedding or being crushed by us; Steve’s and my not getting the sleep we need to be effective parents by day; Steve’s and my ignoring what doctors know is best for us; Violet’s never being able to calm herself when she is upset, day or night; and so on. Many of these people advocate sleep-training or something like it, and that’s cool. There are a lot of proven benefits to getting your kid on a schedule, allowing her to learn self-soothing methods, and having family members sleep in their own spaces.

There are also proven benefits to allowing your children to sleep in your bed for as long as their instincts to stay by a parent’s side tell them they need to, and there are all kinds of methods for weaning from co-sleeping if it doesn’t happen naturally and/or the parents need/want to nudge it along at some point. And while the practice of co-sleeping is often viewed with disapproval in the U.S., this disapproval is almost exclusively Western. We’re not the only country out there raising well-adjusted, happy, successful children (sometimes). There are other methods besides those we have decided in our society are most acceptable.

Again, I don’t mean to sound “down” on parents who don’t let their kids sleep in between them for a time. I’m informed on the benefits of self-soothing, have read what some pro-sleep-training people have to say, and know it’s not the wrong way to go, by any means. I only want to say that …
- co-sleeping has been right for us, in our case
- it’s a pretty individual thing, as are so many parenting decisions
- Steve and I do still touch each other, in case you’re wondering, and I don’t think I need to say anything additional about that on the Internet
- there’s a book I’ve found that I think is a good read on the subject of raising little ones, for parents having decided to go the co-sleeping route as well as those who have chosen other nighttime routines, and this book covers a lot of ground beyond sleeping

Oh, yeah, the book! OK, so here it is.